Qualcomm not buying webOS, but will support platform

Qualcomm has exclusively told Pocket-lint that it will continue to invest and support webOS in the future, but has ruled itself out of buying the operating system itself.

"We are happy to support webOS, whoever buys it," said Cristiano Amon, senior vice president, Product Management at Qualcomm, in a one-to-one chat at the company’s Innovation Qualcomm event in Istanbul.

“We don’t make hardware. And it wouldn’t make much sense to own another operating system," he added.

The statements put to bed a rumour that started when the company’s CEO, Paul Jacobs, sidestepped and somewhat confused the issue just hours earlier in a Q&A session with journalists and analysts.

Asked whether the company was looking to buy webOS from HP, Jacobs told the crowd that he really liked the web-centric operating system and that Qualcomm has put a lot of effort into "that relationship". He also added that the company was "waiting to see exactly what happens".

"More choice is better for developers. But it’s really HP’s call at the moment," was the rather cryptic answer.

That immediately led some analysts to wonder why Jacobs hadn’t just said "no".

Amon also dismissed some reports that suggested a webOS acquisition would help bolster its own mobile phone operating system, BREW: "We build BREW to show operators that 3G has allowed phones to be more than just voice and text," he told us.

If HP does find a buyer, at least it knows that it will be able to run on the latest Qualcomm processors.

Stuart has been a tech journalist since 1998 and written for a number of publications around the world. Regularly turning up on television, radio and in newspapers, Stuart has played with virtually every gadget available.